Perry, recessions and Kay Bailey’s purse

OK. I think Gov. Rick Perry was joking when he questioned in Thursday whether Texas has been in a recession. But perhaps it is a poor joke when today the Texas Workforce Commission reported unemployment in the state had risen from 7.9 percent to 8 percent and the state had lost 62,200 jobs.

Meanwhile, Wayne Slater has an amusing report on an advance copy of a book he received that portrays a Bush speechwriter’s encounter with Perry’s GOP rival: U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison.

You can jump to Wayne’s blog to read the exerpt from Matt Latimer’s book Speechless, or just continue on in our extended entry.

I smiled at her. She looked at us grim-faced. There was not a hint of pleasure in her demeanor. It was almost as if she didn’t want to know me at all. And I swear she had dead eyes. Black, small, not a sign of joy or life in them. They sent a cold chill through my body. As the elevator proceeded downward, the senator turned to her J. Crew aides. They were ‘the purse boys.’ That was the nickname staffers gave them because their job seemed to consist of carrying Sen. Hutchison’s purse around Capitol Hill. They also were known to drive her from her house to work – a distance of approximately two blocks. They were basically taxpayer-subsidized butlers.

This was an unusual day, since normally only one purse boy was with Sen. Hutchison at a time. (The other must have been a trainee). As one of the boys quietly held her large purse, she started to fish through it. Then she issued a list of instructions.

“Now I want you to take my purse back to the office,” she said.

“Yes, senator,” the purse boy responded.

“Take the nail polish out and put it in the refrigerator.”

“Yes, senator.”

“Take the rest of the makeup out and put that in the refrigerator too.”

“Yes, senator.”

“Then put the purse by my desk.” She said this as though it were her routine speech.

The purse boy nodded dutifully, and the trainee looked like he wanted a pen to jot all this down. Elizabeth and I gazed at each other uncomfortably. I felt a little like entering your parents’ bedroom and finding your mother putting on deodorant. It was something you knew happened, but you didn’t really want to think about. Then the elevator doors opened. We moved to the side to let KBH pass. She did so regally, without a word to either of us, the purse boys following close behind. In those few minutes, my enthusiasm for KBH sunk to a previously unfathomable low.

Not exactly something Hutchison needs as she squares off against Rick Perry and his reelection role as Mr. Populist.